a. [ad. late L. vulnerābilis wounding, f. vulnerāre (see VULN v.), but taken passively in accordance with the more usual sense of -ABLE: cf. invulnerable and F. vulnérable, Sp. vulnerable, Pg. -avel, It. -abile.]
† 1. Having power to wound; wounding. Obs.–1
1609. Ambassy Sir R. Sherley, 13. The male children practise to ride greate horses, to throw the Vulnerable and Ineuitable darte.
2. That may be wounded; susceptible of receiving wounds or physical injury.
1605. Shaks., Macb., V. viii. 11. Let fall thy blade on vulnerable Crests, I beare a charmed Life.
1696. Phillips (ed. 5), Vulnerable, that may be wounded.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, IV. 606. Turn, turn, ye Trojans! face your Grecian foes. They, like yourselves, are vulnerable flesh, Not adamant or steel.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 217. [Alligators having] plates or scales, said to be impenetrable … except about their heads and just behind their fore legs, where they are vulnerable.
1810. Southey, Kehama, IX. xii. Thrice through the vulnerable shade The Glendoveer impels the griding blade, The wicked Shade flies howling from his foe.
1857. J. B. Rose, trans. Virgil’s Æneid, 151. The vulnerable heel Of dread Æacides.
b. fig. Open to attack or injury of a non-physical nature; esp., offering an opening to the attacks of raillery, criticism, calumny, etc.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., Pref. We had further Observed it, to have been the Method of our Modern Atheists, to make their First Assault against Christianity, as thinking that to be the most Vulnerable.
1769. Junius Lett., vii. (1788), 59. Reproaches and inquiries have no power to afflict either the man of unblemished integrity, or the abandoned profligate. It is the middle compound character which alone is vulnerable.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, VII. iii. There, alone, is he vulnerable.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, vi. ‘How delighted I am,’ she said, ‘that I have found out where you are vulnerable!’
1863. Mary Howitt, trans. F. Bremer’s Greece, II. xvi. 147. His witty tongue was too keen for the easily vulnerable gods of Delphi.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1873), I. i. 5. Modern society, growing more and more vulnerable…, is made to tremble by the mere rumour of an appeal to arms.
c. Similarly with part, point, portion.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xiii. I. 357. Yet even calumny is sagacious enough to discover and to attack the most vulnerable part.
1789. Belsham, Ess., II. xxxvi. 290. In this vulnerable part, only, can the shaft of the Satirist find an entrance.
1836. Thirlwall, Greece, III. xviii. 85. His private life presented some vulnerable points, through which his adversaries were able to strike more dangerous blows.
1847. H. Miller, Test. Rocks, ix. (1857), 358. Now this physical department has ever proved the vulnerable portion of false religions.
1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf.-t., x. 290. There is a human sub-species … to a certain extent penetrative…. It has an instinct which guides it to the vulnerable parts of the victim on which it fastens.
3. Of places, etc.: Open to attack or assault by armed forces; liable to be taken or entered in this way.
1790. Beatson, Nav. & Mil. Mem., I. 104. The immense expence the Spaniards have since been at, to fortify the city on that side, shews it to have been vulnerable then.
1797. St. Vincent, 16 Aug., in Nicolas, Disp. Nelson (1845), II. 434, note. The Tower of Santa Cruz in the Island of Teneriffe, which, from a variety of intelligence, I conceived was vulnerable.
1809. Wellington, in Gurw., Desp. (1837), IV. 331. In the action of yesterday, our position was vulnerable only on the right.
1860. Motley, Netherl., iii. (1868), I. 65. She felt herself vulnerable in Ireland, and on the Scottish border.
1884. Manch. Exam., 27 May, 5/1. We should find it easier to hold [Russia] in check in the far East if she had vulnerable possessions nearer home.
b. Similarly with part, point, side.
1798. Wellington, in Gurw., Desp. (1837), I. 8. A vulnerable part of the frontiers of the Company’s territory.
1800. Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, v. 210. Every vulnerable point was guarded.
1851. Gallenga, Italy, 52. Even within those limits her Lombard subjects had discovered her vulnerable side.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), II. viii. 277. Charles … was looking for the most vulnerable point at which to strike.
Hence Vulnerableness; Vulnerably adv.
1727. Bailey (vol. II.), Vulnerableness, Capableness of being wounded.
1832. Middlebury Free Press, 20 June, 3/2. This sensibility shows where masonry conceives herself most vulnerably.
1837. Foreign Q. Rev., XIX. 39. We do not think a passage can be quoted to which criticism can be vulnerably attached.
1842. Manning, Serm., v. (1848), I. 69. There comes over us what I may call a vulnerableness of mind.
1894. Mrs. H. Ward, Marcella, I. 166. The inner vulnerableness, the inner need of her affection and of peace with her.
